Hasta La Gadget!

Between the always-listening Moto X and the promise of conversational search, it’s pretty clear that Google’s ultimate goal is to become your very own, sci-fi, voice controlled personal assistant. And the new features Google’s adding to search are bringing us even closer.

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Google Now’s a solid product, but it’s reach is also fairly limited… compared to Google Search, anyway. Now, the company’s voice element in Search — which was updated in a major way back at I/O in May — is gaining some of that Now flair. In the coming days, Google will be rolling out a smarter Search to all US, English-speaking users on desktop, tablet and smartphone, regardless of platform. You’ll need only to tap the microphone icon instead of typing in a search query, and then ask humanistic questions about your upcoming flight(s), reservations, purchases, plans and photos.

Naturally, you’ll need your flight confirmations sent to Gmail and your photos stored in Google+, but if you’re already neck-deep in Google’s ecosystem, the newfangled functionality ought to serve you well. For a few suggestions on questions to try, check out the company’s official blog post. (Hint: don’t ask what your Facebook friends are doing tomorrow.)

Filed under: Software, Google

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Source: Official Google Blog

Google will better highlight long-form content with a new “in-depth” search box in its results, the company has announced today, flagging up three more comprehensive pieces on certain topics. Aiming to satisfy those looking for a longer read, Google says the new system will cater to the roughly 10-percent of queries that can’t be satisfied […]

Microsoft has spent the past several months refining Bing results on the web and the desktop. Now, it’s Windows Phone 8’s turn. An upcoming Bing refresh for the platform will reduce the search filters to three — Web, Images and Videos — while providing more relevant information on the first result screen. The tool is also more likely to show usable results in the first place, with immediate answers available for subjects like flight schedules, movies and word definitions. Photo hunters get some additional love between infinite scrolling and auto-sized thumbnails. Just don’t expect the new Bing features right away. Microsoft is delivering the update to American devices over the course of the next few weeks, with international users to follow afterward.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Microsoft

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Source: Windows Phone Blog

In case you haven’t noticed, text-based search results simply don’t cut it anymore — users are looking for people, pictures and social context. Naturally, Twitter is keeping up with the times, updating its own search bar with socially aware suggestions, previous search data and more robust results. The general search experience hasn’t changed, of course, but the changes do tweak the experience for the better.

Suggested accounts, for instance, are now underlined by users you know that follow them, and simply leaving your cursor in the search field offers a preview of recent and saved searches. Results have more meat too, offering tabs for matching users and photos, as well as displaying them within the standard results stream. A revolution in social search algorithms? Probably not, but it should make it a little easier for you to keep up with the latest celebrity gossip.

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Twitter